July 8, 2022 Weekly Musings

Christine Alfery

Posted on July 08 2022

Announcements:

Expect the Unexpected Accepted Into the Int'l All Media 2022 Exhibition

“Expect The Unexpected,” has been accepted for inclusion in the Northwest Arts Center’s INT'L All Media 2022 exhibition.

Juror, Sarah Justice selected only 44 works for this exhibition. There were 187 submissions made from 65 artists and 3 countries.

INT'L All Media Juried Exhibition
August 5 through September 16, 2022
Walter Piehl Gallery
Northwest Arts Center
Minot State University
Minot, North Dakota

2022 Northwoods Art Tour

The summer North Woods Art Tour is right around the corner! July 28-29-30. This video gives you a little taste of what it feels like to get a behind-the-scenes looks at some of the North Woods' finest artists studios and galleries, including mine!

Click HERE to download map.

Musings:

Like A Box

Featured image: Like A Box

Do we live in a managed environment? One that is controlled and sterile? One where even the concept of utopia is universal and has no uniqueness or authenticity? An environment that has edges, sides, gates, bars, and that appears to have no way out. Like a box – do we all live in a box? Where does freedom enter the picture?

Personal And Authentic

Featured image: Gentle Spirit

Art critic and historian, Linda Nochlin, in the 90’s wrote a paper titled, “Why Are There No Great Women Artists?” This was a groundbreaking paper. It shifted the discussions and theories surrounding art to the concept of gender in art and the difference in art. Shifting theories and discussion about art has been going on for centuries. I believe that it is time though to bring the pendulum back to the aesthetics of art. It is time that we go back to art being unable to be defined because it is so unique and authentic.

How is the aesthetic of art understood today? I would say that it is understood through perceptions, sensitivities and personal conceptions of what art should be. Personal conceptions should not go to the extent that art can be everything and anything because then art would be nothing. But, instead, personal conceptions that make art unique, personal and authentic. This type of personal conception does not make art everything and anything. Personal and authentic makes “art” rare, because today too many are just copycats that have no idea how to present themselves in a work of art. It is hard – but that is what makes it unique. That is what makes it art.

The Modern

Featured image: Just Call Me Lucky

A Couple of weeks back I wrote about post modernism and DuChamp. I wrote about how I believed that it was the beginning of the historical postmodern art movement and a major shift in how our culture’s attitudes toward art changed. In my opinion, our cultures understanding of what art is changed for the worse.
Perhaps the problem is that we as art historians and artists have always label these major shifts in art movements. In labeling the shift of modern art to post modern art, we were signaling the shift to others and defining it. This established that art qualified as art because it was something new. I wonder why. Doesn’t the modern always mean the present?

I refer to Charles Baudelaire, a French poet, writer and art critic in the 1800’ s. Baudelaire believed that to be modern is to be in ones own time. The role of an artist is not to present the shocking or the new in order to be recognized. I agree with Baudelaire. As I have said in the past, the role of the artist is to understand their own historical past in its own context but also according to the conditions of the present world and the conditions of the individual self and their relationship to the past and present.

If I were to relate this to my favorite topic of the space in the middle and the individuals in the middle, trying to shock, to always have the new, to not recognizing the individual for the individuals self and own history is perhaps why some don’t understand that the middle is not grey but, motley and multi- colors.

Black Squirrel

Featured image: Squirrel

A black squirrel appeared in the woods for the first time today. We have many black squirrels in the Northwoods, but this is the first time one has come to my woods. He has caused quite a commotion with the gray squirrels. A stranger in our midst. How many times have we done the same thing? Someone or something is different, so we battle for our space and territory. Do we say, “Oh my gosh, I love the difference that they present to us and I welcome it?” Or do we say, “They are different, and I am not sure I want to welcome them to my space?” Often, we battle their differences rather than welcome it.

I watched as the black squirrel and a gray squirrel were at the end of a very thin branch. The black squirrel seemed to have the upper hand, there was nowhere for the gray squirrel to jump to and no available branch to escape. The black squirrel kept pushing the gray squirrel to the end of the branch. The smart gray squirrel just jumped over him and scampered off. Ha. Who won? Do we need a winner? There are more gray squirrels, and only one black squirrel. How many times do we gang up because we outnumber another? Wouldn’t it just be best to just jump over the difference and find out if they are a threat or a friend? My guess is that the black squirrel just wanted to be able to get at the feeders and eat just like the gray squirrels.

Right now, the black squirrel is playing king of the castle, on the ground feeder eating while gray squirrels are waiting and angry. It will be interesting if the black squirrel stays around.